Cameroon – Douala: PILCAM employees demand 11 months salary arrears!

They expressed their unhappiness last Wednesday at the Carrefour Ndokoti in Douala under the watchful eye of the police.

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016, employees of the Cameroonian company manufacturing batteries (PILCAM) took to the Carrefour Ndokoti in Douala to express their anger towards the company. If one believes The Economie newspaper of Thursday, July 14, 2016, on signboards one could read: “Pay our wages! Employees demand 11 months salary arrears from the company! Where did the money go to? “.

According to the newspaper, since September 2015, employees work without pay. The company is going through a very difficult period, it even initiated internal discussions to try to limit the impact of the crisis that affects many companies in the world. But employees believe “that this situation won’t have affected them.” The regional inspectorate of labor and social welfare and the D.O’s office of Douala III mediated negotiations for several months. And, according to the newspaper, reliable sources indicate that the two parties could not agree.

According to some employees, the situation has worsened since the arrival of a new management to lead the PILCAM company. “It eliminated all employee rights such as ration, bonuses, salary advances, leaves and many others. Worse, saving the helps for managing pensions or departures from the company is mismanaged. Let me remind that it is 3500 FCFA which is taken from our wages per employee each month. That’s about 35 million FCFA. And here we do not even know how it is managed, “informed a striker.

As a reminder, PILCAM is a company created by the businessman Victor Fotso. The first Cameroonian made battery dates back to the 1970s. PILCAM has long been the symbol of a successful business. For in 2001, the company recorded a turnover of up to 11 billion FCFA.